Archive for the ‘Random Asides’ Category

So, I think I may be the only person who still watches “Desperate Housewives,” the hot debut of 2004 that has more recently made an art form of jumping approximately three sharks per episode. In fairness, I actually had stopped watching it for a few years after college, but have returned to it since coming back to school. Spending all day reading books about slavery, prisons, rape, murder, etc. as I tend to do for my day job as a history grad student can really drive you to mindless television on your off time. Also, I actually kind of think it’s a good show, but that’s probably why I’m not a television critic for my day job.

I don’t watch fake news, so I missed this, but apparently Marion Jones talked prison reform in her recent interview with Jon Stewart:

It’s interesting, cause you never know where life is going to take you. Ten years ago, I would have never thought that I’d be an advocate for prison reform… If you don’t equip the people who are in prison with the resources to get an education, so that when they get out they can be successful–they’re gonna wind up right back in prison, or wind up being your neighbor. Or worse, maybe marrying your daughter or your son.

While serving a jail term for stealing money from a concession stand, Heriberto Rodriquez took a job dishing out food in the Hamilton County jail kitchen so he could get out early.

He was fired from that job – which gave him three days credit for each day in jail – because he ladled out too much food, an act that helped a judge decide Wednesday to have pity on Rodriquez and free him.

Rodriquez was supposed to give Hamilton County Justice Center inmates two pancakes each but he was caught giving several twice that much. …

As a reluctant connoisseur of anonymous Internet comments, I have noticed that versions of the same comment sprout up like weeds at the end of any article regarding prison or jail conditions: “If inmates don’t want to be treated this way, maybe they shouldn’t commit crimes!” Well, readers of today’s News-Herald needn’t leave such comments, because the editorial board has beaten them to it:

While we support greater accountability and consistency, and while we don’t feel women should be shackled to the extent they suffer lasting hip and back injuries while giving birth, as an Arkansas women alleges in a lawsuit, we feel the better way for mothers to avoid these problems is simply to stay out of prison in the first place.

You know, I’m sure the mothers in question also “feel” that it would have been “better” “simply to stay out of prison in the first place.”

I get it, even the New York Times needs page views now and then; and I know, Friday evenings aren’t the height of the news cycle. But even still, this is front page news (ok, well, homepage news)?

Meanwhile, I clicked on the NYT topic archive for “Los Angeles, Calif.” going back as far as October 2009 and found not a single article in that time span on the Los Angeles County criminal justice system’s actual problems. From a May 2010 ACLU report: Read the rest of this entry »

Your Honor is aware that because of the current overcrowding in Los Angeles jails, misdemeanor, non-violent offenders like Lindsay serve only a fraction of their terms. In Lindsay’s case, her last term of incarceration lasted only 84 minutes. This not only made a laughingstock of our criminal justice system in the eyes of the world, … but taught her that jail is a revolving door and poses no real threat or deterrent. Overcrowding has not diminished in the last few years since this first incident, and thus we’d expect a similar very brief term of actual confinement.

In the event Lindsay is found to be in violation, Michael renews his request that the Court order Lindsay into an inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. We have previously written to the Court regarding a very private facility in New York — so private, that the public is unaware rehab takes place there.

Of course, the letter is only intended to help one particular celebrity defendant but I don’t see why it wouldn’t apply to, well, almost everyone else facing L.A. County jail time on a drug or alcohol probation violation. Too bad they don’t all have access to super top secret rehab facilities — what is this place — the Bat Cave? In any event, apparently Michael’s pleas were unavailing as the Los Angeles Times is now reporting that Lindsay’s been sentenced to jail for 90 days.